Most Indians live in crushing poverty. 86% of them live on less than $2.50 a day. 740 million Indians live in impoverished, rural villages.i
She works a degrading, back-breaking job only to get cheated at the market because she can’t read, write or do basic math.
Living in constant fear of starvation and homelessness, she makes decisions she’s not proud of--- like sending her young daughters to work making bricks and marrying them off as child brides.i
Illiteracy robs her of earning power so she swallows the lie that she’s a burden. Voiceless, many women are raped or sold into slavery by their own families.
Each day, an estimated 17 women are victims of "bride burning." When her family fails to pay her in-laws enough money to “take her off their hands,” she may be set on fire.i
Countless women and girls in India are tricked into marriage and sold to brothels by their own husbands. Every 20 minutes a woman in India is raped. Though rape is illegal, most cases are never tried.i
No one ever taught her about health, sanitation or valuing her girl children.
47% of girls in India are married before 18.i Some are married as young as 4 or 5 years old, forbidden from going to school and impregnated at a dangerously young age.
Every 12 seconds a baby girl is aborted. 50 million girls are missing in India--- that’s as if every girl in America were to disappear. They’re drowned, choked, buried alive or abandoned in garbage. Girls are 75% more likely to die in their first 5 years than boys.i
